In the present study a comparison of the otolith morphology of two species of parrotfish, family Scaridae, collected from the Red Sea coast of Egypt, is conducted to identify the most appropriate taxonomic characters that separate these species. Ontogenetic changes in the otoliths of the two scarid fishes become evident. In the otoliths of Chlorurus sordidus, the following characters are comparable in small-sized adult fishes: otolith width, otolith depth, mesial surface shape, lateral surface shape, shape of sulcus acusticus, column, rostrum and size of rostrum. The otoliths of young adults (GI) C. sordidus differ from the adult ones in 14 out of the 22 characteristics studied. In the otoliths of Hipposcarus harid, the following characters are comparable in small and large fish: otolith width, otolith depth, mesial and lateral surface shapes, shape of sulcus acusticus, rostrum and size of rostrum.
The asymmetry in the mass of the sagitta of the parrotfish species, Chlorurus sordidus and Hipposcarus harid collected from Hurghada, Red Sea coast of Egypt was investigated. In the present study, the weight of the difference between the weight of the sagitta from both the left and right sides was divided by average otolith mass. The results shown that the value of x in the two-species studied does not related to the length of the fish, though the value of otolith weight difference has shown a trend of increase with the fish length. The value of x was calculated to fall between -0.2 and +0.2.
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